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Coping with area firefighter, EMT shortages

Watching the recent fires in California was frightening, as were the fires in Hawaii last year, but the firefighters there were heroic. None of us want to believe something like that could ever happen to us. However, if it did we would certainly want people like those we saw coming to the rescue in California rushing to save us. The same is true regarding accidents and other medical emergencies. The pressing question is - are there enough nearby firefighters and Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs) available to rescue us? Consider yourself fortunate if you’ve never had to ...

City must not change park’s character

There are several considerations when evaluating changes at Memorial Park in Dunkirk. When I was young I remember my grandfather George Sr. and father George Jr. saying that Memorial Park enjoyed some sort of special status, perhaps use restricted by covenants and restrictions, or by city proclamation. It was a veterans park in its entirety. I don’t know how true that is but we must ensure that any development is in accordance with any special status if it exists. In other words someone needs to look into this and not casually blow it off. The Director of Public works told me ...

Setting some real sports boundaries

During the confirmation hearing for one of the Trump administration’s cabinet secretaries, the nominee testified that “there are two genders.” Sexes, not genders, would have been the right word. As you may have learned in, say, a seventh-grade life-sciences class, organisms that reproduce sexually—as opposed to asexually — have two sexes: Male and female. Males are he; females are she. Gender is different from sex. Early in a foreign-language class, one learns that gender is a construct of language. In Romance languages, nouns have two genders. Each noun is either masculine ...

Rounding Third: Spring brought an unwelcome surprise

In fact, Spring started a little early for us, and brought an untimely gift. Whoop-de-doo. We have ants. And we have been struggling. Occasionally in April or May, we have had a small platoon of the little black critters. Nothing we couldn’t deal with easily. We’d buy an 8-pack of ant traps, punch the holes open, and scatter a few around the kitchen and laundry room. In a few days, the annual invasion would be gone and we’d be back to business as usual. The laundry room is particularly important because that’s where Finian’s food dishes are, along with his sack of dry food ...

Sore losers continue futile efforts

I wanted to write something this week that had no connection to politics but the continuing effort on the part of Democrats to block the agenda that in large part got President Donald Trump elected became hard to ignore. Democrats should remember the words of Barack Obama in 2009 when he reminded Republicans that elections have consequences. Democratic “judge shopping’ to block efforts by the Trump administration to root out corruption and waste In the federal government continues. It appears that Democrats support waste and corruption in government. Is there something the ...

We can afford a lesser sales tax

Reducing the County’s sales tax rate from 8% to 7 ¾% under my Resolution is a win-win proposal. Our residents get a tax break and our cities, towns and villages will be held harmless. Starting in 1968, for over 30 years, Chautauqua County made do with a 7% sales tax. For the last 10 years the County government has repeatedly asked the State Legislature to raise our sales tax to 8%. Some in Mayville now want to continue the 8% rate for the next 2 years. It is time to give our residents a tax break and reduce the sales tax to 7 ¾ for at least 3 reasons. First, there was a ...